introducing Dr. Marc Cohen

Peninsula Hot Springs Group has appointed its first Director of Medicine, Science, Research and Education — and it’s none other than the esteemed Dr. Marc Cohen.

Dr. Marc is a university professor, medical doctor, biohacker, extreme wellness expert, poet, author and more. He is regularly invited by the media to comment on everything from medical diagnostics, yoga, meditation and breathing practices to detoxification, nutrition, organic food, herbal medicine and acupuncture.

One of Marc’s major areas of interest is contrast (or hot and cold) therapy, and he is a huge advocate for saunas and ice baths.

“My mission is to co-create a wellness culture that will infect the world with good health,” he says. “And a lot of these practices, they're ingrained into culture. So, you know, in Scandinavia and Russia they’ve had a big hot and cold contrast bathing culture forever. Since humans have been around, they’ve been going in hot springs and jumping in cold water.”

While Marc’s official appointment is a recent development, he has been involved in Peninsula Hot Springs — and hot springs in general — for a couple of decades now.

It all started when Marc visited New Zealand’s Maruia Hot Springs and had a life-changing experience bathing in the moonlight. After that, a friend suggested he seek out Peninsula Hot Springs co-owner and co-founder, Charles Davidson.

“I met Charles five years before Peninsula Hot Springs opened,” says Marc. “… The week after I discovered Maruia Hot Springs… Someone said, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy, Charles. He’s opening up a hot springs in Victoria’. So, I went and spent the whole day with Charles.”

At the time, Marc was about to become a professor at RMIT university in Melbourne, where he was working to have wellness recognised as an academic discipline. Over the next 20 years, Charles established and built up Peninsula Hot Springs, while Marc created the world’s first Masters of Wellness program in the world at RMIT, oversaw over a dozen PhD students and conducted academic research on the benefits of hot spring bathing. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and multiple textbooks on wellness and natural medicine.

And, in a poetic twist that brought things full circle, Marc and Charles purchased Maruia Hot Springs together, along with 3 other investors. They also co-founded the Global Wellness Institute Hot Springs Initiative, the Global Think Tank (G3T), the Bathe the World Foundation and World Bathing Day. Plus, Marc is the Founder of the Extreme Wellness Institute and Beautiful Water, and co-owner of Extremely Alive Wellness Tonics.

Over the years, Marc has consulted with Peninsula Hot Springs on medical and wellness matters, and trained wellness instructors at the springs in facilitating the popular ‘Fire and Ice’ experience at the springs.

Marc says his main motivation for coming on-board in an official capacity is his love for Peninsula Hot Springs.

“I love the property, I love hot springs, I love the whole wellness space,” he says. “And it’s sort of my dream job. You know, I get to travel the world and visit hot springs… I get to develop new projects… And develop retreat programs.

“What I'd like to… focus on are what I call simple, practical solutions. Which are things that often don’t require much cost, training or equipment, that you can do at home, that really make an impact on your life.”

Marc will be responsible for strategically shaping the education programs at Peninsula Hot Springs and collaborating on medical, science and research projects.

Incredibly, he is balancing his position at Peninsula Hot Springs (which is varied in itself) while juggling his string of other roles. Marc still practises a couple of days a week as a doctor, which he says keeps him “at the coal face of knowing what patients need and knowing what information people want.”

“I’m staying at the forefront… And continuing to publish research,” he explains. “We just published some sauna research that shows that you excrete pesticides in your sweat. So, I'm still involved in the academic world, reviewing research and producing research… And also speaking at conferences.”

And if you’re wondering how Marc manages to balance his various gigs while maintaining his own health and wellbeing, he says the secret is simple.

“I love what I do, so what I do actually energises me rather than depletes me,” he says. “… I’m in my happy place doing this.”

Dr. Marc Cohen will be working closely with the Peninsula Hot Springs team to continue to create world-leading health and wellness experiences.